Joining the Wii Sheep

The last game console I purchased was a Nintendo 64; in fact all the consoles I’ve ever owned have been made by Nintendo. This past weekend, on something of a whim, I picked up a Wii. I’m not one to camp out to get in that next shipment, so with the inventory shortage mostly sorted out (Futureshop has plenty of stock both in store and online) I walked into a local store and walked out with $500 worth of hardware and games. Hey, it’s been almost 10 years since my last purchase, so I figure there’s some reverse-amortization happening. 🙂 It’s really only like $4/month.

I loved the Mario Kart game for N64, so I just had to have the new version for the Wii. I picked that up along with an extra wheel. For another controller, I went with the Wii Play package, that includes some little games, but more importantly, the extra Wii-mote. I dropped in another Nunchuk to be safe and I was off to the cashier.

Now there’s a logo I haven’t seen in a while…

Right off the bat, I could tell why lots of people have fallen in love with the console. From the diminutive size to the slick interface, this could easily be something Apple conjured up. Also of note is the Wii-mote ‘jacket’ that comes equipped with all new controllers now. It’s this monstrous rubber/silicon protective wrapper, so that it doesn’t hurt so much to get hit by someone waving their Wii-motes around madly. I’ve been told by plenty of people that it’s not about the big arm movements in a game like tennis, but let’s be honest, it’s a bit hard not to get into it. I found myself swinging pretty hard on more than one occasion.

Without a doubt the games are fun; Mario Kart with a ‘wheel’ is just a whole other game compared to the N64’s controllers with little thumb-sticks. Golfing brings me back to those days on PEI. The motion sensitive controls take a lot of these games to another level. I’m not a hardcore gamer, so I really couldn’t care less about chainsawing people in Gears or War or slinking around in Metal Gear Solid. On the other hand, a large number of games for the Wii appeal to a wider audience, which is exactly what Nintendo intended. And looking at the sales numbers, I think they were right on the money (excuse the pun) by targeting this underserved market.

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COMMENTS

8 Replies to “Joining the Wii Sheep”

I have to admit that I kinda gave up the who games console thing years ago when I had a Sega Megadrive and SNES. However I had a go on the Wii just the other day and now I find it totally addictive. I think I’m going to buy one soon when I get some money.

The Wii may be dominating raw console shipments, but it lags severely in attachment rates – the number of games people buy per console. It lacks in that department because of a severe lack of quality third-party games. I’ve played SSB Brawl and Mario Galaxy and they were great games, but I’ve also played things like Mario and Sonic’s Olympic game. It was fun with a group of people, but at the same time I was longing for something more than just wagging and flailing the Wiimote.

Then again, I think my 360 satisfies my violent tendencies since I do enjoy chainsawing enemies and smashing cars left and right in HD graphics.

If you feel the need to go for a first-person shooter, give some love to the under appreciated Metroid Prime 3.

I agree, I think Nintendo struck gold when they launched the Nintendo Wii. This is mainly due to it being on the innovative side and very ‘family’ friendly. I have one and the kids love it. It’s not tailored towards the serious gamer so is easily adaptable for youngers, or even adults who are not very ‘technical’. My Xbox 360 has just developed the red ring of death so will be on it’s way to a Microsoft repair centre shortly, and the Wii will be getting more use.

I absolutely agree that the Wii is more a group-oriented console than the others, but I also think it’s more kid and older generation-friendly as well. It’s probably a function of our age that waving a wand around doesn’t really appeal as much, but cut my age in half and I think I could sit/stand there forever.

I have a super long weekend (Yay Canada Day!) to give the Wii a more in depth analysis. Perhaps with more play time, I’ll discover if it quickly gets boring or not.

The PS3 has plenty of exclusive games that let it hold its own quite well against both the Wii and the 360, not to mention its many multi-plats.

As for the Cell processor and BluRay, neither have performed even near to expectations. Only recently have PS3 multi-plats caught up with the 360 graphically, and developers have found the PS3 to be horrendous to develop for because of the Cell. The BluRay format, while great for movies, suffers a bit when being used for games because of the slower read speeds of the BR compared to DVD, which increases loading times. This is one of the reasons why Sony made hard drives mandatory for the PS3, so that games could partly install themselves in order to lower load times.